Monday, July 29, 2013

In an opinion piece published today in the Globe and Mail, historian Charlotte Gray proposes that the August statutory holiday celebrated in most Canadian provinces and known most commonly as the Civic Holiday be renamed Champlain Day. Part of me feels like punching holes through her glib arguments, but part of me thinks: Why the hell not? Champlain is, no question, one of the most endearing figures of French colonial / Early Canadian history.

Gray doesn't allude to it, but as it happens there is a whole lot of Champlain-related stuff going on this Civic Holiday... uhm, I mean Champlain Day, Monday, August 5th, at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau. Canoeists who have been retracing part of the explorer's journey along the Ottawa River as part of the fundraising "Défi Champlain" will be landing there through the afternoon. The Museum, in collaboration with the Réseau du patrimoine gatinois, and the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg Nation, will meanwhile be holding a day of dance, music and traditional knowledge demonstrations. As this coincides neatly with Quebec's "Mois de l'archéologie", museum curators Jean-Luc Pilon and Yves Monette will also give talks on the archeological evidence of the French and Algonquin presence along the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers. The irony here is that August 5th is not a holiday in Quebec...
P.-F.-X.

Making his way from Portugal to New France sometime before 1673, Da Silva married a local and settled at Beauport, near Quebec. Over the last decade and a bit, our friend Pedro/Pierre has acquired some notoriety owing mainly, it seems, to Portuguese-Canadians' lobbying. His claim to fame is that he was the first commissioned postal courier in New France. He was cited in Ontario's Celebration of Portuguese Heritage Act (2001). In 2003, Canada Post issued a stamp commemorating him specifically. In 2008, An Act to recognize Pedro da Silva as Canada’s first officially commissioned letter carrier was introduced in the Canadian Parliament by Liberal MP, Mario Silva (in the end, though, it never got past first reading and did not become law).

But how accurate are these commemorative claims? In 1705, Da Silva famously received a commission from Intendant Jacques Raudot. To quote from it at length: "Étant nécessaire pour le service du roi et le bien public d’établir en cette colonie un messager pour porter les ordres en tous lieux de ce pays où besoin sera, et étant informé de la diligence et fidélité de Pierre Dasilva dit le Portugais, Nous, sous le bon plaisir de Sa Majesté, avons commis et établi ledit Portugais messager ordinaire pour porter les lettres de M. le gouverneur général et les nôtres pour le service du Roi dans toute l’étendue de cette colonie lui permettant de se charger de celles des particuliers pour les rendre a leur adresse et en rapporter les réponses." I know of no earlier commission of this sort. Da Silva, then, indeed appears to have the first individual to be designated as official messenger to the governor and intendant. But any claims beyond this reflect an overly generous reading of the evidence. The1705 commission's provision by which Da Silva was allowed to carry letters "from private persons to their address and to bring back the replies", which has been interpreted as an official recognition of his role as a postal carrier for the colony, is more accurately understood as permission for a practice that might otherwise have been perceived as a representing a conflict of interest : here you have a messenger of the state who is expressly allowed to supplement his income by carrying letters for private individuals. I might be wrong, but this strikes me as something rather different from the modern mail carrier. Anyways, a digitized version of the original document can be viewed via the Archives Canada-France database... on a good day, at least, as this database is notoriously malfunctioning.

In light of the 1705 commission, researchers have worked back and found that as early July of 1693 Da Silva was paid 20 sols to carry a package between Montreal and Quebec. And some have seen in this the first postal distribution in Canada. Not so. A variety of individuals had carried letters and packages along this axis for a good half century on an ad hoc basis, and had sometimes been paid for it. How else do you think that mail circulated?

Da Silva's absence in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography gives us a sense of how recent -- and unfounded in scholarship -- the commemorative emphasis has been. His son, the mason Nicolas Dasilva, did receive an entry, though.

Sorry, Pedro/Pierre...

Filming of the documentary will take place in the vicinity of Trois-Pistoles. Historical "adventurer" Billy Rioux is set to consult with the scenario and play the main character. Rather little information is available at this point, beyond an article in the weekly Info Dimanche.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Yes, you heard right: Fort Ticonderoga -- or Carillon, if you prefer -- in Lego! Four and a half years' worth of construction, apparently, by a certain Starbuck Starfighter (presumably not his real name) and his son (Starbuck Starfighter Jr?). I include a photo of the real thing, to give you a sense of how remarkably accurate the creation is. It was nominated in the "best large building" category at Brickworld Chicago. I don't know who won, but the judges were clearly mistaken in not awarding the prize to these guys.

In his introductory post, Martin promises to provide some behind-the-scenes images and descriptions of his discoveries in the museum's collections. Martin is a specialist of the Early Modern British Atlantic, but I'm hopeful that he'll bring to our attention some lovely French colonial material. Pre-deportation Acadian gems? Won't you please, Martin?